The village ahead of them was hauntingly beautiful in its abandonment. The buildings made from large and uneven stones were mostly crumbled with only a few walls still standing. The wood that seemed to make up the floors had mostly decayed and disappeared. Vines and moss grew everywhere giving the place an almost eerie feeling. Even though they were standing on the threshold of a village, this place didn’t belong to people. This place very much still belonged to nature itself. At the center of the village stood the one building that didn’t seem to be touched by nature all that much. Sure, the outside was covered in vines and moss just like the rest of the village, but the building itself was still fully standing, no parts of it crumbled or damaged. Even the stained glass window in the front tower was still intact.
“Now be very careful,” one of the older researchers said. His name was Bobar, if Eliana remembered correctly. “We don’t know how close to crumbling any of these structures could be. If we don’t approach with utmost care we might damage something important.” The researchers started setting up their small camp where they would do their research from. Within an impressively short time they’d cleared out a space near the edge of the jungle, put down cloth to cover the moist dirt floor and started organizing several books, some writing equipment and several brushes and other tools. Kayzel carefully started walking through the empty streets, most of them covered in a thick layer of leaves and tree roots that had broken through the surface, reclaiming the land that once belonged to the jungle. He had to be careful with every step he took and Eliana watched him slowly progress down the path until he made his way to the church itself. He stopped in front of it for a while, staring at it in awe.
“Please don’t touch anything yet, Kayzel,” another one of the old men said. Eliana didn’t remember his name at all and she wasn’t going to ask again at this point.
“Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything, I’m just looking to see if there’s anything we can learn from the outside.” he pointed up at the stained glass. “I think that looks a lot like Owlana’s symbol, does it not?”
“Boy, do you really think my eyes are good enough to see that at this distance?” the old man replied.
Eliana could see what he saw though and agreed with his assessment. What was a temple to Owlana doing out here in the wild? Actually, was that really so strange? Out of all the gods, Owlana was by far the most confusing one. She seemed to have believers in the strangest of places and although her temples and churches were definitely commonplace in the big cities, there were also many of them out in the countryside. It wasn’t all that weird that they found one here as well. Owlana’s symbolism was often that of feathers, and owl and books combined in some way. The stained glass here looked like an open book with a quill pressed into the paper, ready to write something. Eliana wasn’t the type to pay much attention to the gods, but the building was – just like the village it was standing in – hauntingly beautiful. Kayzel walked back to the rest of the group after doing a quick circle around the church. “It’s strange, it almost feels like someone was just here, but I don’t see any traces of a person.”
“Perhaps you’re just freaked out for no reason?” Eliana suggested, drinking absentmindedly from the bottle of liquor she kept with her. She wasn’t a heavy drinker, but she did enjoy the warmth of the drink whenever she felt a bit anxious. Despite how uninterested she pretended to be around this village, in truth it freaked her out as well. Like Kayzel said, there was definitely something eerie about this place. The path seemed untrodden by anyone for a long time yet it still looked like a path. That was probably the best way to describe it. Paths would disappear over time as they were something man made. So why was this pathway through the village much more clear than anything else. Someone visited this church long after the village was abandoned, but not recently. That was the conclusion that Eliana came to.
“So what’s the plan?” Eliana walked up to the researchers that had spent the past twenty minutes crouched around several books, discussing something in circles. “I’m getting bored.”
“With all due respect, Captain Tidescreecher, we’re currently discussing that. It is of the utmost importance that we approach this with as much patience and care as we possibly can.”
Eliana shrugged. “More time for the wild animals to converge on this spot I suppose. I’m pretty confident I can outmaneuver most creatures in this jungle, I hope your mercenaries are equally good.” Although she wasn’t serious, she did seem to catch them off guard and saw worried looks being exchanged. Whatever it took to get them to speed up a bit. “Well, I suppose we can start our field investigation soon.” The old man named Bobar looked at Kayzel. “Young Kayzel, would you be so kind as to inspect the door for us, you’re a bit more nimble than the rest of us.” He chuckled.
Kayzel nodded and as he walked down the path to the church entrance once more, Eliana followed him. “Are they always that slow and boring?” She asked.
Kayzel laughed. “More or less. When you get that old you’ll probably be boring too.”
I’m pretty confident I’m much older than those fools, she thought to herself, but she didn’t say anything. The front door to the church was larger than most doors. Standing at a solid three meters tall and about two meters wide, it was large enough that the two of them had to work together if they wanted to open it. First they had to cut away at the vines that were covering part of it, as they would stop them from moving the door at all. Once all the vines were cut off, they started to work on the roots that stuck out of the ground and blocked the door. Kayzel had brought a shovel with him after he noticed the roots during his first inspection of the church and using the shovel to break the roots they finally managed to clear everything that was in front of the door after a couple of minutes. “You do the honors,” Eliana said to Kayzel.
He looked at her. “You know it’s probably too heavy for me, is this some sort of bullying tactic?” He asked.
Eliana laughed. “Glad you know your own strength, kid.” She helped him pull open the door and with a creaking sound it opened, causing a big groove in the dirt ground where it opened. The inside of the church looked dark except for the center of the room which was lit up by the sunrays that came through the stained glass window. The pews were still intact and even the altar at the front of the church stood proud. If someone told Eliana that there was a service here last week she would believe it. But that was obviously not the case. Something or someone kept this place from crumbling. Perhaps it was magic. Kayzel lit a lantern as they stepped into the dusty space, lighting up the different paintings and statues that lined the walls. Eliana didn’t really recognize any of it, but perhaps the old man would know what this was all about. The thing that really caught her attention was the large statue looming over the altar. It wasn’t a statue of Owlana, that much was certain. “What do you think this place is?” She asked Kayzel. She could hear the old men shuffling down the path as well, probably joining them inside the church shortly.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I think we’ll have to ask Bobar, he’s much more of an expert on old architecture and strange religious practices. If I were to put in a guess though, I’d say this is likely a mix of common religious practices on the mainland combined with something else, something foreign to me at least. I don’t know what that statue of the strange man is, at least.”
“Me neither,” said Eliana. “But it’s giving me the creeps.”
Kayzel sighed deeply. “Glad I’m not the only one then.”
The old men – which at this point Eliana figured she should probably learn their names because referring to them as the old men in her head was feeling kind of mean – finally made their way carefully along the path that led to the church and stepped into the relatively dark building. They all had lanterns, brushes and tools with them and soon the place was much more lit up. The mercenaries that brought them here stayed outside of the building to keep an eye out.
“This is quite curious,” Bobar admitted. They’d made their way into the church and started their investigation. “There’s all sorts of artworks in this building, but none of it matches the rest. It’s almost as if someone went around through different places at different points in time and stole a little bit of art from each place. There’s old art from the mainland here but also relatively new art.” He pointed at a painting. “Look, that’s painted by an artist called Malowin. Malowin is a painter that is still alive and yet,” he pointed at a statue towards the back, “that looks like the handiwork of Gal Garan, a sculptor that lived more than a thousand years ago.”
Eliana was impressed. “You really know your stuff.”
“I may be old and frail and a liability, but I didn’t come here unprepared,” Bobar said proudly.
Eliana chuckled. “Fair enough.” She looked at the old man that had shuffled towards the big statue towering over the altar. Bobar called him Sefan and she made sure to remember the name. “Sefan, do you know what that is a statue of?” She asked.
The man with the long beard and missing front teeth turned around and wore a big, toothless smile on his face. “But of course I do, this is a statue of Aradin.”
“Aradin?”
“I suppose he’s not a well known figure in modern times. Aradin was the first follower of Owlana. Although many followed in his footsteps and she turned into a commonly known goddess over time, when she first ascended this wasn’t the case. She was always powerful and knowledgeable, of course, but you can only do so much as long as people don’t believe in you. So when Aradin stumbled upon her first temple she gave him a large share of her knowledge and he immediately started spreading the word. According to historians he was a very charismatic man, quite the opposite of the goddess of knowledge who has often been described as indirect and cold.”
“Have many people interacted with her?” Eliana asked.
“Many would be an overstatement, but she has shown herself to scholars on occasion and most of them were disappointed by how cold she seemed.”
“Well, if you’re a god you probably have other priorities than being overly nice.”
“Either way, seeing a statue of Aradin is rare. That’s not something that normal temples build. But this church is also much older and stranger than most of the ones you encounter on the mainland, so I’m curious who is behind all of this.” The old man rubbed his chin. “Someone must be taking care of this building, it looks too well maintained for it just to have been abandoned to the ages.”
Kayzel agreed. “It seems like it’s also much less decayed than the rest of the village, which is weird.”
“Could it be magic?” Eliana asked.
“Doubtful, but not completely impossible.”
As they were discussing their different options they suddenly heard a scream from outside.
Opal Kaharis 